


A Spectrum

by perhapsoneday



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Gross Over-Use of a Color-Based Metaphor, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Not Beta Read, POV Multiple, Tony Stark Has A Heart, also proof-reading is for the weak and the patient, and while i may be the first i am not the second, the author's not projecting your projecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 11:24:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18072539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perhapsoneday/pseuds/perhapsoneday
Summary: Four times Peter tries to make sense of what's going on inside his head and one where Tony helps.





	A Spectrum

Peter comes home red and shaking and covered in sweat. He’s red in his lungs where its sticky and tight, and the breath he drags in catches on every edge of his throat when he tries to push it back out. Red on his fingers as he pulls up the creaking window frame, rushing blood pulsing through his hands, making them feel swollen and stiff. Red under his nails and around the beds, last night, last night, don’t look.

Red drips from his mouth into the sink. Red flushing cheeks, they burn on his face and in the mirror. Red in his eyes, over-dry and hazy, all he can see.

Red on the floor, a pool of fabric kicked in the corner.

Down his back and his legs, down the drain and away. He leaves the water on cold.

Dawn is leaking through the windows and he slinks into the kitchen. He leaves off the lights, lets the colors soak into the air. It’s better than the white of fluorescents: too soft, less and more than he can bear.

He eats breakfast dry, with his hands. No need to rattle around and wake up May. She must be tired. The first time he came home last night, he could hear her crying all the way from his spot on the roof. He’d turned around then, the need to rest deserting his bones. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, knowing he’d left her there. Left when she needed him.

What she needed, what he needed. It’s not here, anyways.

He swipes his backpack off the floor. It smacks against his shoulder with a thud, sending a shiver all the way down to his toes where it hits the still raw skin under his shirt. It’s too early to head for school, but he can’t stay here. He scribbles a note, wishing May a good day at work.

He makes it halfway down the hallway before he turns around and goes back for the suit.

  


\-----------------------------------------------------------

 

It stirs up a gooey pot of satisfaction, familiarity, and humor, watching Peter slowly melt in the lab. It always works, no matter how tightly wound with anxious energy the kid is when he arrives. A couple hours of drafting or tinkering or, on occasion, lending an actual hand to what Tony’s working on, is the equivalent of sticking the kid in a relaxation oven turned on high.

… And that’s probably a few too many food metaphors. Did they forget to eat again? Damn, he’s not supposed to do that, especially not with Peter.

“Hey Pete, how you feeling?” Tony asks, knowing the answer will be the same as always: ‘Kinda hungry, Mr. Stark,’ which translates to absolutely famished.

“Blue,” Peter says instead.

Tony looks at him. Properly, with brain now fully engaged. Peter’s head isn’t _technically_ lying on the table, but it’s a close thing. The stylus in his hand is looping leisurely back and forth across his Starkpad. Breathing even, shoulders loose.

“Everything alright there, squirt?”

Peter blinks, swivels to look at him with his brow scrunched.”Wha?”

Tony suppresses a wince as he formulates his question. It’s the instinct of Old Tony, or Young Tony, or whatever, Emotionally Constipated Pre-Peter Tony. He’s long decided there’s no room for that side of him here.

“Well, colloquially speaking, ‘blue’ is not a particularly positive response. Something gotcha in the dumps, or--?”

“--No! Nope, ah, Mr. Stark. Um.” And cue tomato-hued Peter, one of Tony’s personal favorites. “I just meant-- I really didn’t mean it that way. Sorry.” Peter’s hands come up to his hair, his feet untangle from his chair to land on the ground. It’s all the beautiful de-stressing work of the evening come undone, which Tony _hates_ , but.

He’s can’t afford to be repeating any mistakes. Not here.

“What did you mean, then?” He asks, gentle, neutral, nonjudgmental.

“Just. Ah. Blue is good, you know?” He makes a wavy gesture with his hands. It’s a space-filler, and Tony waits while the kid translates what’s going on in his big brain. “It’s, like, soft, I guess? Familiar, maybe. Blue skies, soft blankets… May.” His eyes dart down, just for a moment, to Tony’s chest. Which is, obviously, a coincidence. Just a twitch.

The arc reactor isn’t even _there_ anymore.

 _Focus_ , Tony.

“Well, good, then,” Tony says, and his voice is not at all scratchy. “You know, I think, maybe, we’ve got, some blueberries. Upstairs. For pancakes and stuff. Bluecakes. We should do that. Food.”

Peter’s hands release his curls, and he gives a small, timid smile. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” Tony says. And that’s that.

  


\-----------------------------------------------------------

  


Orange is sloppy. It’s greasy and overflowing, and it makes him paranoid, double and triple-checking to make sure it’s not spilling over or leaking out, like a bright neon sign flashing to the world: _DYSFUNCTIONAL, BROKEN, NEUROTIC_.

It’s frenetic, too. Every time he moves, he can feel the electricity, all the way from the muscles in his legs to the buzzing in his skull. Sitting still is definitely not an option, though. It makes the tremor too noticeable.

Patrol normally helps when he gets like this, but Happy’s taking him straight to the compound after school, so that’s out. And he likes going to compound, he really does. It’s pretty much the second most amazing thing in his life, after Spider-man, but. It’s just. So _much_.

Mr. Stark can tell. He’s a genius, of course, and everyone always tells Peter he’s a bad liar. He tries, but there’s orange in mouth, acidic in the back of his throat every time he speaks. Mr. Stark will surely see, will hear it in the cracking of his stupid, tight voice.

They don’t go to the lab. Mr. Stark takes Peter to the gym, instead, which Peter’s seen, but never really been inside of. It’s so _big_. Like, there’s a wall and ceiling but it feels so much larger than outside ever does.

It’s amazing.

He looks at Mr. Stark, a million questions and unintelligible exclamations blocking each other from spilling out. His eyes are probably a little wide and dopey like they get sometimes, but it makes Mr. Stark get the squinty eyed, closed-mouth smirk, so it’s alright.

“Well, then,” Mr. Stark says, “have at it, kid.”

“What?”

“Only one way to see how well those new web combinations work.” He makes a wavey motion. “Go on, give ‘em a spin.”

So he does.

There’s plenty of room to get to full speed, and hundred different ways to use every one of his web settings in the jungle gym. Eventually, he starts running low on fluid, but he doesn’t slow down.

The only thing he can hear is his own pulse and breathing, and the sterile air that rushes past his face. He doesn’t feel neon anymore. Instead of trying to hold all the orange underneath his skin, it’s evaporated into the air, sucked through the vents to be filtered away. Instead of explosive, he’s … pastel.

Mr. Stark must have left at some point, because he walks back in with two boxes of pizzas balanced dramatically on one, raised hand.  Peter thuds to the floor in front him, sweat dripping down his unmasked face.

“Ha,” says Mr. Stark. “Knew this would work.” Peter’s not sure if he’s talking about letting him burn off steam or summoning him with the smell of pizza, but, hey. He was right both ways.

There are chairs and a table in one of the corners, one of which Mr. Stark uses. Peter opts for the juncture of the wall and the floor.

The pizza is cheesy and greasy and still steaming hot. Only takes about half a minute for Peter to end up with some on the tip of his nose, which makes Mr. Stark snort, so he leaves it.

“So…” says Mr. Stark. It’s one of _those_ ‘so’s. The heavy kind.

Peter puts his pizza down. Looks at his knees, pressed suddenly together. He does not look up at Mr. Stark, or at the tremor that’s back in his right shoulder.

“What color are we today?” asks Mr. Stark.

Peter takes a breath and tells him.

  


\-----------------------------------------------------------

  


It’s Doombots this week, apparently. And don’t get Rhodey wrong, Doombots are annoying and dangerous, but it’s nice, sometimes, to deal with an enemy that’s a little more straightforward than dinosaurs and super-spies.

They wrap it up pretty neatly, more according to plan than these things usually go, at least. Tony gives the call to rally the team -- what’s left of the team, that is: him, Tony, Vision and, when Tony allows it, Spider-man.

Speak of the devil, Tony’s pet project is already crouched sideways on a building next to him, the two of them bantering up a storm off com. Rhodey stays back, indulging them; the two seem to -- tentatively -- be a good influence on each other. And, you know, maybe he’s a little bit curious.

“Hell yeah, kid! You weren’t half bad with that flip-kick thing, either. Getting the hang of those upgrades, it looks like.” Somehow, despite the enormous hunk of metal encasing Tony, he still manages to sound like a chatty carpool dad. “So, whaddya say? Robots disabled, day saved, final aced? What color is that?”

Rhodey blinks at the question, wondering if he misheard

Spider-Kid gives a small, not-quite-timid laugh. “Green.”

“What? I would have pegged this one for a ‘gold.’”

“No,” says the kid. “Green is, like, after a really hard run, or a decathlon meet. There’s still that kick from the adrenaline, and the pride, and y’know, the relief.”

Tony, apparently, understands what that means, because he huffs a laugh and turns to face the incoming Vision.

They keep the debrief short, and Spider-man is summarily dismissed, per Tony’s insistence. It’s no secret that the kid has a curfew, though it always makes Rhodey a little uneasy to contemplate. The _young_ has always been understood, but it hasn’t escaped his notice how scrupulously Tony avoids revealing _how young_. Rhodey’s let it go so far, because the little he’s seen of the two together is enough to convince him that Tony actually is taking this seriously.

Still, he lingers, knowing Tony will understand he wants a moment to talk.

“What?” Tony doesn’t even bother pretending to be nonchalant, past experience with these kinds of asides setting him on the defensive.

“Just ... making sure everything’s … good. With … everything.” Okay, so that came out like garbage, but Rhodey’s not used to the kind of distance Tony’s been enforcing when it comes to Spider-man. Deflection, recklessness, asshole-ery, that they know how to field, but this is different.

“Yeah,” says Tony. It’s softer than Rhodey is expecting. Tony’s looking away as he says it, and though he glances at Rhodey with a reassuring smile, he eyes goes back to the direction Spider-man zipped away in. “We’re good. It’s all blue.”

Rhodey has absolutely no idea what that means, but it it puts that look on his friend’s face, he thinks he just might be able to get used to it.

  


\-------------------------------------------------

  


Waking up is almost always purple. It starts in his ribs, the pull of a semi-permanent bruise, sharp edged enough to spill out in a whine.

_Peter?_

The voice is distant, murky, filtered down a hundred times through the fuzz in his brain. He moves towards it anyways, always has, always will.

The purple behind his eyelids is heavy, like a freight-train. Except Peter could probably lift a train, but he can’t seem to claw his way out of the dark.

_Stop, stop! Just hold still, kid. You’re gonna hurt yourself._

Too late for that. He’s shuddering, top of his head all the way down, and every inch awakens a new nerve ending. The sluggish hues in his muscle are fading away, mauve brightening to magenta, burning into violet.

Peter gags and contracts reflexively. Except he can’t pull his arms in, can’t … can’t _move_ . The pressure he’s feeling isn’t from the inside after all, it’s above him, below him, _pushing._

Trapped. He’s pinned, stuck, can’t get out, _trapped_ \--

_PETER!_

The panic has ratcheted his senses up to eleven, magnifying every pressure point and scrape, but it also amplifies Mr. Stark’s voice. Like it’s right next to his ear -- Oh.

He’s wearing his mask. Mr Stark is speaking to him through the com. He’s not. Actually there.

“Yellow,” Peter chokes, “yellow, yellow, yellowyellowyellow.”

“S-Spider-man?” That’s not Mr. Stark. Not someone someone he recognizes, and it’s not coming from his com.

It’s a civilian; that’s why he’s here, he remembers now. He was evacuating the building, but then there wasn’t enough time. He’d pushed her back in, away from the collapse. He cranes his neck to look at her crouched beside him, the mask’s eyes adjusting to make up for the dim lighting and his fuzzy head.

She’s scared. Shaking. Blood on her forehead and rubble on her shoulders. And she’s looking at him, wide-eyed and waiting.

Peter takes a breath, closes his eyes. The kaleidoscope fades away.

Okay, then.

He can’t tell what part of the building is lying across his back beyond the choking smell of concrete dust, but he decides it’s going to be way easier to try and move the pieces of desk smashed underneath him.

Mr. Stark is still talking in his ear, telling him to wait, telling him it’s going to be okay. He shouldn’t have done that. It means Peter can hear the fight still going on in the background. Help is most definitely not on the way yet.

“Miss, can you move?” God, speaking hurts.

She nods.

“I need you to see if you can get--” He has to stop and cough.”Get that window open behind you.” The effort of speaking has black spots swimming in the air in front of him. It’s distracting enough that he misses the actual part where she must have crawled the few feet across the floor. He refocuses as she chokes on a sob, fingernail scraping at the window frame.

“I can’t, I can’t, it’s stuck.” She’s not crying yet, but she’s close.

“‘S’okay. Just. Break it.” He running out of time, before the rest of building comes down or he blacks out again or both, but he can’t afford to make his move too soon and risk her getting crushed.

The glass shatters. “It’s too high,” she says. The dumb part of him thinks _It’s only six stories_ , but he knows she’s right.

“Move,” he breaths, and wriggles his left arm out from underneath his hip.

It’s harder than it should be to dredge the math up from the back of his brain, estimating the distance and the angle. If he were standing, it would be easy as sneezing to leap out the window. But even if he could stand, he won’t have the time; the moment he removes himself from the chain of load-bearing rubble …  well, he’s going to have to do this all at once.

The webs don’t work on the first try. Again, and nothing. Again, and -- the mechanism clicks and fires. His aim is terrible, probably because of all the wetness on his face, but the strand makes it out the window and connects with _something_. Good enough.

“Get--” he wheezes hard, “-- back -- in front -- of the window.”

“What?” She sounds calmer now, at least.

“We have’te. Be fast.”

Mr. Stark is screaming, now, but Peter doesn’t look away from the woman. He needs her to trust him, doesn’t have the energy to waste explaining.

She seems to understand. Enough that she moves where he needs her to be,

Peter plants his feet on the concrete behind him, thumb hovering over the button to reel in his web. The mechanism itself isn’t particularly strong, but the elasticity of the strands will provide some extra force, and his super-strength should give them with enough momentum

One last breath. _pushes._

Every piece of him tears.

There’s no control here, no chance to attempt any kind of decision. He hits something soft and _holds_ , tight as he can even as it screams. And then the pressure shifts, the weight moving to his wrist, his shoulder. His brain tells him they’re dangling, which means he made it out, it worked, it _worked._

Mr. Stark’s voice is a million miles away from him again, in his ear and in front of his face at the same time, two places at once. Ha. Double Iron Man.

He lets go.

  
___________________________________

  


Once the doctors decide Peter’s leg doesn’t need surgery, things get kind of anticlimactic. He’s still not allowed in the room, but the urgency of the situation is … not gone, exactly, but standing still, like a speeding train that’s smacked into the side of a mountain.

 _He’s going to be okay_. It was the first thing Dr. Cho said to Tony when they got there, and it’s been repeated by various other people several times since, each with increasing conviction. And Tony believes them … theoretically.

The problem is, he knows what’s coming next in a way the doctors just aren’t prepared for.

Peter wakes up. They don’t have a sedative that’s proven to work with Peter’s metabolism without causing an overdose, and Dr. Cho was entirely against taking any risks they didn’t need to. Which leaves them with local does of anesthetic that are entirely insufficient. 

There’s no screaming that Tony can hear; a small blessing. But when a nurse comes jogging out with a strained smile on his face, he knows what it means even before he’s being asked to come help keep Peter calm.

He hesitates just long enough for his knees to stop trembling.

Peter’s eyes are locked on him before they’re even pushed through the door; heard them coming probably. He’s pale, and sweating, and there’s blood smeared all over his cheeks.

Tony tries to smile reassuringly, but given that the attempt is physically painful, it’s probably not successful. He gives it up and lunges forward instead, dropping to half crouch next to Peter’s cot. Peter leans his whole body towards Tony, only stopping when one of nurses presses a hand against his shoulder.

“Easy. We need you to keep still.” She glances meaningfully at Tony. Right. That’s why he’s here. Keep Peter calm while they finish their work, so they don’t have to restrain him. And for a moment, the ridiculousness of that overwhelms him; he can’t, he’s not good enough, it should be someone else, he should have called May--

The doctors pull on something out of sight, and the kid whimpers.

Since Peter can’t move, Tony does. He can’t take Peter’s hand, wrapped in bandages as it is, so he settles for the only thing he can reach, and taps their foreheads together.

“Hey, kid,” he whispers.

“Hey,” Peter croaks back. 

They stay like that for a long time, far too long for the sake of Tony’s knees, not that he gives a damn. Eventually, the doctors finish. Someone must bring him a chair. It’s only mildly more comfortable, but even that turns out to be too much. He falls asleep.

When he wakes up, Peter is propped up against the pillows and staring at him. He cracks a small grin when Tony lifts his head.

“You’re drooling.” He sounds good, normal. It wipes ten years off Tony’s shoulders.

“Oh yeah? Why don’t you get up out of that hospital bed and say that to my face?” Tony snipes back, but regrets it as soon as he sees the speculative look come over Peter’s face. “No-- No! Don’t you dare, kid.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “I’m _okay_ , jeeze. Super-healing, remember?”

“Yeah, really wish you would stop testing that, buddy.” He suppresses the lecture that building up inside of him. Later. “Really, though, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Peter says, instantly, unthinkingly.

… And there’s that decade settling back into Tony’s spine.

Right. He knows this song and dance. It’s no use snapping at the kid, or pressing, or even guilt-tripping. Good thing he’s the brilliant Tony Stark, and he has an idea.

He pulls out his phone and downloads a picture of a color wheel to shove in front of Peter’s face. It’s not ideal, obviously; he was really looking for a one-ten pain-scale kind of a thing, but, hey. This is how Peter processes, and at least it usually gets the kid talking.

“Well?”

He’s not sure exactly what he’s expecting the kid to pick, but he’s surprised anyways. Peter taps a gauze covered finger gently on the center of the wheel, the white spot. He looks away immediately afterwards, like he’s shy.

Tony frowns. They’ve never done white before. He’s not sure how to decode that. Damn, he thought he’d had this figured out: blue for safety, red for pain, yellow for fear, and everything else on a sliding scale in between. Which makes white....?

“Oh,” Tony breathes. “Everything all at once.”

Peter is shaking.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Peter. Me too, alright? Me too.” He pulls Peter back around to face him, and then, what the hell, all the way into a hug. “We’re gonna be okay, bud. I’ve got you.”

“Okay,” says Peter, voice wet and muffled by Tony’s shirt. “I’ve got you, too, you know.”

Tony believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyyyy I would die for Irondad.
> 
> The color thing might seem a bit over done, but I've actually found this a helpful way to talk about trauma ... you know, until you start using it as a distancing technique to avoid actually feeling things, like Peter does here. And also it's probably not that healthy to think of everything in terms of how close it is to pain, fear, and safety, but hey, that's trauma baby. In case it wasn't clear, here's how I linked the other colors and their EmotionsTM:
> 
> Orange = Anxiety  
> Green = Excitment  
> Purple = Exhaustion
> 
> Love ya'll, thanks for reading.


End file.
